Do you think that the Early Years Foundation Stage is a good thing for children or carers?

Question

The EYFS will be implemented in England from 1st Sept 08 and will be regulated by Ofsted. It covers children from birth til the 31st August after their 5th birthday.

Answer 1

I think that combing Birth To Three and the Foundation Stage into one smooth flowing framework will support settings who have mixed age children in one class eg: pre-schools where they have 2years old in a class with 3 and 4 year olds. It will support the planning process, creating a record to pass on to new settings and maintaining appropriate next steps!

The fact that its in overlapping age ranges means that children are not expected to be in one box by a certain age but can be working towards several goals. It also highlights any areas of learning that are being missed by the setting or that could indicate a special education need or additional support needed. This also helps when it comes to reviewing learning with the parents as they can see a visual for the expected 'norms'. So all those parents who say "my friends daughter did this by age 3-why isnt my daughter" can be shown the framework and their mind (in most times) can be put to rest.

The new learning journey achievement records are great (once you get used to them)...they show parents what the child does in the setting and how the learning flows. The booklet is styled to allow parents to be involved with comments and being able to support in the home.

I think that change can be scary and different and may take a while to get into the swing of it but then again many people complained when Birth to Three and Every Child Matters came into effect and yet after a while it became normal practice.

Answer 2

its always been their only under a different name

Answer 3

I think it's good to have some sort of guidance about the kind of things children in the old Foundation Stage (3-5 years) should be doing, but I think to have statutory age related milestones before then is inappropriate. I suppose it does help to prevent nursery nurses in private nurseries from ignoring the babies all day (I've seen that happen), but my personal worry is how long will it be before stay at home parents have to be following it and charting their child's development to show Ofsted or some other agency? Babies will carry on doing what babies have done for centuries, and parents don't need the added pressure of ensuring their child can do everything on some government produced list. Most parents who commit to spending their time at home with their young children already do a good job of bringing them on and encouraging early learning, so this kind of thing is a bit of an insult to them.